Conservation

Conservation

Seventeen Roman marble sculptures discovered some fifteen years ago in the village of Vid, near Metković, are among the greatest achievements of Roman sculpture, and they have invaluable significance for Croatian cultural heritage. The sculptures, representing the Roman imperial family, members of the aristocracy and deities, have been dated to the 1st and 2nd centuries, and they are believed to have originally been elements of the Augusteum of Narona.

The long, complex conservation treatment of the Romanesque painted crucifix from the convent of St. Clare in Split revealed traces of a number of prior interventions, testifying to a continuous awareness of the value of this work of art and the centuries-long care over its preservation. On this occasion, most of the previous coats of overpaint have been removed, the damage to the wooden support has been repaired, and the crucifix has been treated with gamma irradiation to provide it with permanent protection from biological degradation.

The 16th-century paintings by Paolo Veronese, conserved in the Croatian Conservation Institute, belong to one of the wealthiest painting collections of Dalmatia, which is kept in the church of St. Lawrence in Vrboska on the island of Hvar. They belong to the polyptych of the main altar. The complex multiannual conservation project encompassed eight paintings on wood and canvas which originally made up the polyptych, and a wooden gilded tabernacle which is believed to have belonged to the unity of the polyptych.

The conservation of six paintings with scenes from the life of St. Domnius, a martyr from Ancient Salona is coming to an end. The paintings from the choir of the Cathedral in Split were painted by Pietro Ferrari in the 17th century. Due to a high degree of damage these large-format canvases had suffered, they became an object of complex conservation and restoration treatments, which had been carried out at the Institute since 1998.